This story is part of NRN’s Top 100 special report, a proprietary census ranking the foodservice industry’s largest restaurant chains and companies by sales and unit data, among other metrics. The full report is available only to Nation’s Restaurant News magazine subscribers, and is part of the June 25 issue. Subscribe here.
The new normal — tight-fisted consumers and hard-to-secure financing — have made today’s foodservice game largely one of stealing market share. And whether it’s pulling dollars from another segment or from a segment peer, there’s lots of giving and taking going on in the Top 100 universe. This year, sandwich chains maintained a near majority of share within the Top 100 universe of $205.72 billion in sales. Beverage-Snack, a new category for the Top 100 report [See Q&A with project director Alan J. Liddle for details] showed the power of consumer demand for drinks and off-daypart sales as Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks and Jamba Juice helped propel the category.
Take a look at this year’s largest restaurant segments.
Segment icons created by Joe Anderson
Illustration by Sonya Moore